Why Challenge Your Boot Camp Clients?

I love a challenge. I’m Shawna Kaminski, also known as ‘the pull up queen’. I run fitness boot camps and I have a great solution to help you challenge your clients as well as get them to stay and refer to you.

My boot camps are highly successful. In fact, some of my clients have been with me for over seven years. I’ll let you in on one of my secrets….

Clients love to see results in boot camp, but often times client results are strictly focused on weight loss. While losing pounds is extremely important, changing the focus to performance can be a welcome change.

When I’ve shifted the focus from just weight loss to performance, many of my clients have newfound motivation and success. I think this is because people are so bored with the usual goal of ‘I wanna lose weight’ or ‘I’m on a diet to look better’ or ‘I’ll exercise cuz I’ve outgrown my jeans’.

Guess what? With the focus on performance, weight loss has been a happy coincidence.

I’ve found clients pumped up and excited to have tangible goals. Things like:
-I want to learn how to do a pull up unassisted
-I want to do 10 push ups on my toes in a month
-I want to be able to do 5 full on burpees (with a push up) in 30 seconds
-I want to improve my time on a specific circuit next time out

What client doesn’t want to get stronger? Faster? More fit?

Are you quantifying fitness parameters with YOUR clients?

Wait a minute…

Who has time for this in the context of boot camp though? The whole point of boot camp is to leverage time right? You want to provide your clients with fast and amazing workouts with no down time.

How can you incorporate fitness ‘testing’ into your camps without taking away from the workout?

I know that ‘Mrs. Jones’ wants an awesome workout every day she attends my boot camp. I wondered how I would create a fitness test that would test her fitness, keep her motivated and most importantly eliminate boredom so she’d keep coming back and bring all her friends with her.

So I developed a number of ‘tests’ that I used in my boot camp. I developed a system where by we’d do an initial test and then retest. The beauty of this was that clients felt they were just doing a workout and NOT so much a test. There was no standing around, no waiting.

I used timed sets, AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) sets or rep count sets and developed easy ways to record results that kept clients moving. I found that recording results was imperative to goal setting, accountability and improvement. I was able to minimize the amount of data recorded, while maximizing the info gathered.

Rules of the test:
Start at 10 reps of each exercise. Rest as little as possible, do 9 reps of each exercise, count down until the client finishes with 1 rep of each exercise. Stop the clock.

Challenge Workout Take Away – Timed set Template

Record time and any modifications.

Name

Test 1

Modification

Test 2

Modification

There are a ton of tests that you can use with your clients once you have an easy system. It helps them set goals, be accountable and get great aesthetic results all at once. Your clients will love the process, stay with you and bring their friends. If you want your boot camp to be alive and well while others flounder, consider doing boot camp challenge tests.

Oh, by the way, you can check out Challenge Workouts: Boot Camp Edition to see if these ‘done for you’ tests and ways to easily evaluate your client’s fitness while they’re doing amazing fat burning workouts are right for you.

Shawna Kaminski is a retired schoolteacher of 20 years who’s found her passion in the fitness industry. She’s parlayed her ability to teach and her love of training into programs like her fitness boot camp. Shawna consistently has over 100 clients attend her boot camps monthly. She’s retained many of her clients for nearly a decade. Shawna is in her late forties, is a mother of two teenagers and understands how busy life can be. In addition to running her fitness boot camp, she does online coaching and training as well.

Craig Ballantyne is the author of The Perfect Day Formula: How to Own the Day and Control Your Life. Craig has been a contributor to Men's Health magazine for over 17 years. Today he teaches his gift high-performing entrepreneurs how to squeeze more out of their days, increase their income, and make more quality time for their families in his Perfect Life Workshop and Work-Life Mastery programs. Craig used his own advice to overcome crippling anxiety attacks in 2006, and he'll teach you his 5 Pillars of Success so you can increase your income, decrease your work time, and live the life of your dreams. Learn more about Craig at craigballantyne.com

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